Linux Kernel 3.8 Released, Includes F2Fs File System for Solid State Storage

After getting delayed a couple of days, the Linux 3.8 kernel is all polished and ready to go, Linus Torvalds announced. The big new feature in the 3.8 kernel is F2FS (Flash-Friendly File system), a new file system designed specifically to take advantage of NAND flash memory-based storage devices, such as solid state drives (SSDs).

"NAND flash memory-based storage devices, such as SSD, eMMC, and SD cards, have
been widely being used for ranging from mobile to server systems. Since they are
known to have different characteristics from the conventional rotational disks,
a file system, an upper layer to the storage device, should adapt to the changes
from the sketch," Samsung's Jaegeuk Kim explained.

"F2FS is a new file system carefully designed for the NAND flash memory-based storage
devices. We chose a log structure file system approach, but we tried to adapt it
to the new form of storage. Also we remedy some known issues of the very old log
structured file system, such as snowball effect of wandering tree and high cleaning
overhead," Kim continued.

Other changes introduced with the new kernel include true CPU hot-plug support, Radeon graphics driver performance tweaks, default support for the graphics cores of Haswell processors, full 3D support for all GeForce GPUs, improved networking performance, and much more.

Linux is in position to build up some momentum in the mainstream market. In addition to better graphics support in the newest Linux kernel, you have companies like Valve backing the open source platform, most notably by releasing an official Steam Client for Ubuntu.